Mr Harry Creamer in 'Declaring Support for Rob Oakeshott' (Courier-Sun, Feb 27) didn't disclose that his small and relatively unknown group with a big name had Mr Oakeshott as its patron. He should have.
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Let’s now go to the lies, myths and misinformation perpetrated by Mr Cramer in his adoring sermon.
“His (Mr Oakeshott’s) achievements included $96 million for Port Macquarie Hospital…” No. Funding came from Ms Nicola Roxon, the federal Minister for Health in the Rudd Labor Government in the 2010 budget. For the record, it was also the Gillard Labor Government and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek who funded $40 million for Kempsey Hospital in the 2012 budget. Mr Creamer's patron saint is missing from both announcements.
“It was Rob Oakeshott who got the $1 billion for the Pacific Highway upgrade, $600 million for the Kempsey bypass, and $35 million for the Kempsey to Port Macquarie upgrade, projects now successfully completed.” No. Mr Anthony Albanese promoted and approved these, the Infrastructure and Transport Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments as a part of an overall $7.9 billion program of works between Port Macquarie and Tweed Heads under Labor.
“He (Mr Oakeshott) was also part of the process that produced the best climate change laws in the world at that time”. Yes, they were federal Labor’s climate change laws and Mr Oakeshott was one vote in 150.
Everyone is familiar with Mr Oakeshott’s infamous 17-minute meandering following the 2010 election. People might not remember that it took Mr Oakeshott 17 days to choose between Julia Gillard or the coal-loving, climate change denying and policy obstructionist Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. A true environmentalist would have taken a nanosecond to choose Julia Gillard and Labor.
Let’s not forget that in early 2012, Mr Oakeshott was promoting “burning native-forest wood for electricity production (which) could kick off more logging, and more conflict”. (Source: The Conversation).
Finally, Mr Oakeshott preferenced Luke Hartsuyker of the anti climate change action Nationals ahead of pro-action Labor at the 2016 election. (Source: How to vote).
If Mr Oakeshott were to win this election and no party had a majority, he may well choose a return of the coal-loving Morrison Liberal-National Government . The recent sentiment expressed to me by a leading local environmentalist – “Risky Rob – no way – we need Labor” – is something I hear often.
The only way to ensure real action on climate change is to support the election of a Labor Government. We’ll all be better off with a Labor voice inside that Labor government – a voice of a credible, qualified and committed environmentalist.
Andrew Woodward, Bellingen
Labor candidate for Cowper
Not our patron now
I am writing to clarify some misunderstandings about Climate Change Australia's relationship with Rob Oakeshott.
Rob was the patron of CCA for quite a number of years. In 2018, the CCA committee decided that as an organisation we would no longer have a patron. This decision was minuted in the records of our August 2018 Committee Meeting.
I subsequently emailed Rob last year about this decision and Rob responded, stating that he understood our position and accepted the decision. All this happened last year (2018) well before Rob announced his candidature for the seat of Cowper in the 2019 Federal election.
Rob has not been the Patron of CCA since last year, but unfortunately we did not follow up to ensure that Rob's role as CCA Patron was removed from our website - this has now happened, but several months after the decision was implemented.
As current President of CCA I take full responsibility for this oversight.
Harry Creamer was a founding member of CCA and the inaugural President for our first 10 years. He remains an important part of our committee and of the organisation.
Earlier this year he wrote letters of support for Rob Oakeshott to several newspapers in the Cowper electorate. However he wrote as a private citizen, not as a representative of CCA, and I understand from Harry that he did not include his relationship with CCA in his letters.
Unfortunately some of the papers chose to put Climate Change Australia under his name - this gave the erroneous impression that he was writing on behalf of, and expressing the views of, CCA.
This is not the case. CCA does not endorse any candidate.
On behalf of CCA, I apologise for any misunderstandings this sequence of events may have caused.
Kerri-ann Jones, Port Macquarie
President Climate Change Australia-Hastings